Note 290 — JUVENAL'S SATIRES. (continued 2)

Lacte. The old Schol. says Poppæa was banished, and took with her fifty she-asses to furnish milk for her bath. The story of her exile is very problematical, as Heinrich shows, and is probably only an ordinary hyperbole. Pliny says (xxviii., 12; xi., 41) that asses' milk is supposed to make the face tender, and delicately white, and to prevent wrinkles. "Unde Poppæa uxor Neronis, quocunque ire contigisset secum sexcentas asellas ducebat." ὄνους πεντακοσίας ἀρτιτόκους. Xiph., lxii., 28.